This show is free and open to the public. Please click the link above to see show details.

Art en Fleurs - Botanical Arts Workshop - March 5 & 6, 2019

2019’s Art en Fleurs show will include botanical arts category, and, in an effort to spur your imagination and begin thinking about entering, GTGC is pleased to announce that a Botanical Arts Workshop has been confirmed for the first week in March. It is not too soon to begin preparing, and the workshop promises to be a fabulous opportunity to learn more and think about your own entry for September’s show! Hopefully this will lead to some spectacular local submissions!

Rana Holbrook has arranged the workshop with Emilie Lapham, a GCA member from Philadelphia. Emilie is very talented and has won numerous awards in botanical arts. She will be leading 2 separate workshops - one on March 5th and one on March 6th.

The workshops will be held at the Town Club from 9:00 am - Noon. There will also be an optional lunch and afternoon studio time for an additional cost. The cost of the workshop is $50 per attendee, which will include a tool kit and a cutting board. A lunch and afternoon studio option will be an additional $20.

Emilie will only be able to accommodate up to 15 attendees on each day, so sign up is encouraged as early as possible. We really want to make sure we have full attendance on both days, so payment is required when you register to reserve your spot. The registration form has been emailed to the GTGC membership.

If you plan to attend, start thinking about collecting natural materials. Even with a little bit of snow cover, you can still find seeds, pods, and even a leaf or two if you’re lucky. Also, collect things as you’re traveling over the next few months. Be sure to record the names of the materials you’ve collected.

Art en Fleurs 2016

​The New Member Challenge 2016

Class 106: Riding in Wisconsin (New Member Challenge)The exhibit should represent one of the topographical areas of Wisconsin (lakes, prairies, woodland or dunes) and incorporate Harley-Davidson in an imaginative way.Well, imagination is what it would take to incorporate lakes, Harley-Davidson (in the form of plants) – to be nurtured by a team – and then judged by really smart, experienced women!Our team consisted of me as the team captain, simply because I had been in the Green Tree Garden Club the longest of the “new members,” Kathy Carr and Heidi Wurlitzer.Immediately after the challenge was presented, I went off to a garden center and walked around in an overwhelmed daze that was occasionally interrupted by seeing other teams (prairie, dunes, woodlands) in a similar state. Needless to say, I was quite nervous and intimidated by the whole thing:• How on earth do you bring Harley-Davidson and Wisconsin lakes together in plants?• What are the judges looking for?• Brilliantly talented and intelligent women from garden clubs in southeast Wisconsin would all see our planter.Did I mention that there would be judges?!?Like all teams, we gathered in July for the first time. This would also be the last time all three of us would be together. I had found a collection of plants that would be encountered near water and we came up with the idea of arranging them as you would view them leading down towards a lake: from tallest to shortest. We had a beautiful little corkscrew plant that easily represented the twisting, curving roads that a Harley-Davidson rider might take to arrive at one of our pristine lakes. We had a start!The next three months were a series of emails, texts, phone calls and meetings at each of our homes, parking lots or designated spots to pass the planter around as each of us went on vacation, had a daughter get married, or just needed a break from plant sitting.The workshop put on by Paulie McCown and Diane McGauran helped immeasurably. We didn’t know about things like top dressing and how to write up the cards needed to accompany the entry. We also consulted with Kathy Palmer, whose words of advice and creative eye are invaluable. We decided to top dress the plants that would be furthest from the water with moss, closer to the shore with small pebbles and finally, those at the water’s edge with sand. We also fussed over removing every dead leaf or part thereof and made sure the plants looked fresh.Then we got lucky. The two plants that we had hoped might be in bloom were actually blooming. We really have no explanation for that. Perhaps Ray, our neighbor to the north, would have been able to force those blooms – but for us it was just good fortune.After all the anxiety, it all worked out. Apparently, the judges liked our idea and awarded us the blue ribbon. Personally, I am grateful for the teamwork, for everything we learned about how to enter a show, and continue to stand in awe of the generous, intelligent women in our club who gladly share their talent and knowledge.